Displacement
by Ava Nova
Summary: 'I wasn't even aware the Tesseract was activating until it was throwing me halfway across the room and, concequently, half way across the world.' M for language. OC, potential Mary Sue, but it's fun, so why not?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is really a pet project; I'll need a fair bit of prompting to continue, and it'll most likely end up unfinished, mostly because I have a story I'm working on with my lovely beta reader TheSkyIsNotAlwaysRed that I'm trying to actually write**_** well**_**. BEWARE: Potential Mary Sue behaviour, Silliness, Swearing, Consistent Swapping Between First and Third Person, Cheesiness, Cliche's, Significant Plot Changes, etc. This is for fun, so I hope the people reading it have fun too.**

"Miss Hunter, it's really a simple task."

"But... it's underground."

"We're underground now."

"Well, yes, but civilised underground. It's dark down there. And didn't you say rats chewed the wires?"

"I said there was environmental damage. You added the rats, Miss Hunter."

"I wouldn't be surprised. There's a reason no one maintains stuff down there. It's gross."

Agent Coulson, despite his infamous, near infinite levels of patience, was beginning to wear down. Today seemed to have been a hard day for his, what with the Cosmic Death Cube freaking out that morning, but my bickering was nothing compared to the stuff he talked about with Tony Stark. Still, even he wasn't getting me to lower myself into the maintenance tunnel to repair some wires chewed on by _rats_.

The glare he was giving me was pretty chilling, though, so I opened the top drawer of my tool box, grabbed a roll of gaffer tape and held it towards him menacingly.

"Fine, but you owe me sir." He didn't seem to register my comment at all. He turned away and approached the Tesseract again, but just before I turned away I saw him lift his sleeve to his ear and start power walking towards the stairs.

Guess the top man was here. Goodie.

With a heave I slid the metal grating out of its place and slowly clambered down the hole it left, into the maintenance shaft. It was only about 5 feet tall, and I'm sure it would have seemed a lot more spacious if not for the mind boggling amount of wires tied around each other running from the Tesseract station to the platform that – as far as I knew – would host the Intergalactic Portal of Doom.

Or maybe Barton was just screwing with me on what that Magic Death Cube actually did. It had been glowing and spitting all day though, so I wasn't about to walk up to it and find out for myself.

Luckily the wires were mostly intact; it was mostly cosmetic work on keeping them out of the elements. Which was good, because I wasn't sure what I'd do if my gaffer tape didn't fix anything.

Normally only the head of the Department was allowed down on this floor; they were keeping shit Top Secret, so we didn't get a whisper out of the Head. Normally he was good for all the gossip on the base, but whatever this was it was serious. Out of nowhere that morning, the Head called us all away from what we were doing to get working on what was on this floor – an apparent object of amazing power that these people were pretty much poking with a cattle prod to see if it bites. I had only started working on the base a year before, and mostly operated on simple jobs like replacing light bulbs and the coffee machine in the break room. I didn't do stuff like this.

Even worse than sending me down to fix it; why the hell were they just letting their equipment get damaged like this?

"They should really get an exterminator in here, if they don't want this happening," I muttered aloud. "Oh wait, yeah, top secret. Well, someone around here has got to know how to kill some vermin."

There was a scrabbling sound. I froze.

A squeak. Oh man, I was out of there so fast it's amazing I didn't hurt myself. Well...

Looking back on it now, it's amazing I didn't hear any of the ruckus going on above me. I was completely oblivious to the Tesseract activating until it was throwing me halfway across the room and, consequently, halfway across the world.

"Hill," Fury called from his station, spinning on one foot to see both of his monitors clearly. The SHIELD agent in question quickly approached, hands folded behind her back in typical military posture.

"Yes, sir?"

"Before Rogers and Banner get here, I think there's something I have to go over with you." Maria's brows furrowed, but she didn't move otherwise until Fury took a step away, pacing swiftly out of the door and towards the briefing room.

"Sir?" Maria questioned. Fury swiftly picked up a remote and pointed it towards the nearby viewing screen, which lit up with CCTV footage from the day of the Terreseract accident.

"There was another accident the day the Tesseract was stolen. One of our maintenance crew, Molly Hunter, was hit by offshoots from the device. We weren't able to find her body in the rubble, but we assumed her dead." The footage showed the ginger haired woman in the blue maintenance uniform jump down into a hole, crawl back out and be thrown across the room by a blue energy beam, out of the camera's view.

Pressing another button, the footage changed to another CCTV shot, this time of the same woman sitting up on a hospital bed, a young nurse dabbing at an arm wound with a cloth.

"This footage was taken 15 minutes later in a Sydney hospital." Again, Maria's brow furrowed. Clearly the facial recognition program had picked up similar looking, but different women; it was impossible for a woman to dig herself out of the rubble and get all the way to Australia in 15 minutes... wasn't it? Fury raised an eyebrow at her, clearly sharing her confusion, and pressed the button again, changing to new footage.

"This was taken in Amsterdam a further 17 minutes later." Hunter was lying in the dewy grass of a large park; even in the dark of night, Maria could see the woman was dazed and confused, one hand raised in front of her face for inspection. It appeared the ring finger on her right hand was missing, though Maria couldn't see it anywhere nearby.

"Sir... how is this possible?" she asked. Fury turned off the screen and dropped the remote, massaging his temples.

"We don't know yet," he stated honestly, "but we have a team bringing her here now. If she can be of any use to the Avenger Initiative, I want her in. You're going to be her handler."

Maria almost choked. She wasn't a handler; Coulson was a handler. He could deal with fussy billionaires and demigods from far away planets. Maria didn't do things like that. She just followed orders. She didn't even like most people.

"Sir-"

"She doesn't have any formal training. _If _she's deemed capable, I want you to make sure she's ready. We'll be keeping her under observation here, and if she disappears, we'll send a dispatch team out to find her. It's a simple job I'm asking you to do, Agent Hill; if it's too difficult for you, I can always find someone more capable to do your job." It was a thinly veiled threat, but Maria still felt the cold resignation of defeat.

"That won't be necessary, sir."

"Good. I don't want anyone to know about this until we're sure of what this is."

He slid a thin manila folder across the table and left without a further word.

**A/N: I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, so I just assumed that Hill and Coulson were pretty much at the same level in SHIELD, and thus both qualified to be handlers. If anyone can tell me what the goes is, I'd love to know. But for the sake of me having fun writing this story, I'm just going to do whatever the hell I want. **

**Anywho, tell me what you think, any ideas, whatever you want really! I'll try to respond to any reviews I get.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Tried to make this chapter a little longer. I've been getting a crazy amount of story alerts for this! Even if it's only short, I'd love to get a review from some of you. On that note, I'd like to thank **_**Mac n' Meez**_** for her lovely review. Thanks very much!**

* * *

I had lost a finger. A _finger._ While it wasn't something really important, like a thumb or an index finger, it was still a part of me, and I had grown quite attached to it in my 26 years of having one.

Also, I had been miraculously jumping from one part of the world to another near instantly. But still, _my poor finger_.

"_Mevrouwtje? Bent u goed?"_ I turned my head, grass prickling against my scalp, to face the man standing above me, tiny round glasses balancing upon his round nose.

"Wow, you look so Dutch."

"_U bent blijkbaar ziek, Mevrouwtje._" I flexed my hand in front of my face once more, then pushed up onto my elbows.

"You spreken ze English?" I asked the man. He pushed his glasses up his nose – fancy suit, briefcase, some kind of businessman – and offered me a hand up.

"That is German, _Mevrouwtje_. You are in the Netherlands," he answered. His voice was clipped and clearly accented, but he seemed to know a fair bit of English. I rubbed the back of my neck, looking around me. Other than the wandering glances of passersby, I was mostly going unnoticed.

"Did you see how I got here?" I queried. The man shook his head, placed a hand upon the small of my back, and led me towards the path.

"I was walking through the park when I saw you; I worried you had been attacked, but you have only one injury," the man warbled, pointing towards the place my missing finger should have been. "Do you remember how you came to be here?"

I couldn't exactly tell this man the truth; firstly that I was working on a secret, American government project, but also that I was apparently able to _teleport_ now. Uncontrollably.

Speaking of which, I should probably put a little thought into trying not to do that again. I'd like the rest of my extremities to remain firmly attached to my body, after all.

"Uh, not really. Just kind of woke up out on the grass." _'Oh, yeah, Molly, that's convincing.' _"I never got your name, before."

"You may call me Mr. Rolf, _Mevrouwtje_." I heard the sound of a car door opening, and suddenly Mr. Rolf was gently pushing me down into an expensive looking black car, the tan leather seats _amazingly _soft. If it weren't for the seatbelt he was clipping across my chest, I probably would have rubbed me cheek against the seat.

I'm probably not well.

"Miss Hunter."

"_Fuck!_"

'_How long has she been there?'_ The woman beside me had tightly bound brown hair, a stern yet flawless face, and the typical SHIELD uniform I usually wore. The patch on her arm betrayed her rank. '_Fuck, fuck, this is Maria Hill.' _I mean, uh, what can I do for you, ma'am?" Without taking her eyes off me – crap, she was kind of scary – she reached under her seat and handed me a manila folder. Flipping it open, careful to keep my injured, bleeding hand away from the pristine files, I carefully looked over everything. It seemed like a mishmash, last minute attempt to explain to me not only what appeared to be some kind of response team known as the Avengers Initiative, but the history and experiments being done to the Tesseract. I shook my head as I read, utterly confused.

"What does this have to do with me?"

"The Tesseract has been stolen, Miss Hunter," replied Agent Hill, "Whatever happened when you got hit by that beam, we definitely want you around. Director Fury thinks you may be of use in the Avengers Initiative. I just hope you can help us find the Tesseract before anything else goes wrong." I nodded, going back over the files in the folder.

"So where are we going?"

"A SHIELD base. You'll be safe there, and we'll do what we can to learn more about your accident."

'_Well, I wouldn't call it __**my**__ accident.'_

* * *

When Agent Hill said she was taking me to a SHIELD base, I had pictured a big concrete building surrounded by barbed wire fences, with spotlights and armed security and guard dogs.

But this was a boat. A really big boat. A floating city, almost.

'I christen ye, Boatopolis,' I thought, a grin creeping onto my face. Hill gave me a disparaging look. I felt my cheeks flush. "Uh, cool boat."

"Once we land, head straight inside. You won't want to be on the flight deck when the helecarrier takes off."

Mr. Rolf, who had been until that point looking out the front window at the floating monstrosity, turned back to Hill with a tiny of his eyebrows I took to be surprise. "This is a plane?"

"Of sorts," Hill replied. Something about her posture showed some kind of smugness. I leant forward against my harness, flabbergasted.

"That thing's gonna fly?" Hill nodded, a tiny smirk appearing on her usually tense face. "Okay, I've really got to meet the guys who made this thing." Hill's stiff posture returned.

Mr. Rolf returned to his seat as the jet we were in slowed down and hovered to a stop on the flight deck, directed by men in bright jumpsuits. As soon as the doors began to opened I fiddled my way out of my harness and flew across the deck, straight to the edge of the boat, which was terribly unsecured, considering the massive turbines lifting themselves out of the water. I could only imagine how much power those turbines would output; though I was sure the longer I stayed outside the worse the forces would get.

"Hunter! Inside, now!" Hill's voice, even while screaming, was almost drowned out by the sound of the turbines starting up. As the wind began to pick up around me, and flight crew scrambled to tie everything down, I pulled the zip of my uniform jacket up to my neck and jogged back to Hill before she led Mr. Rolf and I inside. My ears roared in the sudden drop of volume.

"Remarkable," breathed Mr. Rolf. I nodded.

Immediately inside the doors to the flight deck was some sort of control centre, filled with SHIELD agents and employees either busy at work stations or speed walking between them. In the centre of the room, looking down at the bustling employees like some kind of God on a pedestal was the almighty Cyclops Lord himself, Director Fury. The rumours were true; the man _did_ wear an eye patch. His look of restrained fury – ha, get it – really gave him more of that 'Fearless Leader' vibe.

"Seriously, I thought we were the good guys. We need to update our image." Director Fury turned his gaze to us, his one good eye betraying that constant anger at the ineptitude of his employees.

Employees like me. I smiled sheepishly at him.

"Miss Hunter, Mr. Rolf. Nice to see you made it." He turned away, soldiering down a set of nearby stairs to meet us. He nodded sharply at Hill, who relaxed into an 'at ease' posture. I chuckled, filled more with nerves and cynicism with that one sentence that I had held in a good long time.

"I can't promise I'll stay long."

"That's something I intend to help with." This was a new voice, another cutting new accent of the day, this one more oriental than European. Perhaps Chinese. If the appearance of the woman descending the stairs, with black hair and sharp dark eyes surrounded with laugh lines, meant anything, it seemed the voice had come from her. Her lab coat fluttered along behind her as she approached, shaking our hands. She identified herself as Doctor Carol Lin.

'_Oh my God... really? Carol Lin?' _I snorted, though thankfully I went unheard. I don't think I could take another one of Director Fury's looks.

"It's my job to find out what's been going on with you the past few days, Molly. Hopefully, we'll be able to help you get more control over it." She seemed genuinely excited to meet me. Not 'mad scientist' excited, more 'making-the-world-a-better-place-to-be' excited. I liked that.

"Miss Hunter, Dr. Lin will take you up to her lab to do some tests. Mr. Rolf, Agent Hill, if you would follow me," Director Fury commanded, leading my two companions off. I wasn't exactly going to stare after then like an abandoned puppy, so I turned to face Dr. Lin, waiting for her to take charge and take me to her lab.

* * *

"How do you feel about a locator chip?" Dr. Lin tapped my knee with the little hammer, watching my leg spasm.

"Woah, what?"

"Don't worry," she chuckled, laugh lines crinkling, "you can say no. It's just in case... _it _happens again, so you don't get lost."

"Oh, well, that's not so bad then." Assuming having a locator chip put in didn't hurt as much as some of the things Dr. Lin had put me through during my 'quick check-up'. I'd already been given two injections, one to each arm, and would continue to get them in the coming weeks as it became safe to do so. ("There are lots of diseases in the world, Molly, and you never know where you'll be going next!") Dr. Lin had been surprisingly open for a doctor undertaking secret government experiments, talking me through each procedure and what the results would tell her.

Lin hummed, what I had learnt very quickly was a 'that's not good' hum. Hopefully it was something about my BMI again. "You give off the same gamma signature as the Tesseract." She tapped a note into her phone and sent it off with a little _whoosh_. "Better let someone know, or they might think you have it."

"Is this bad?" I squeaked, ice running through my veins. "Will I get cancer or something?"

"Not as far as I know," replied Lin. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, feeling the ice melt away. "Cases of gamma poisoning are few and far between, and this isn't a typical case. Luckily, we have an expert in the field coming in."

I'd read about that in the file I got in Amsterdam; Doctor Banner was an expert in gamma radiation, and was getting brought in to track the Tesseract. I'd heard a few titbits about SHIELD's dealing with him. Back when Barton was around, and not a total mind slave, he has told me the only way they were bringing Bruce Banner in was in handcuffs, if they could make some to hold The Other Guy.

His big draw to the Avengers Initiative was that, thanks to his gamma experiments, he was now able to transform into a green giant of uncontrollable rage, known as the Hulk.

I certainly hope nothing like that happens to me.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Okay, this took longer than I would have liked. I watched the Avengers again over the weekend and realised that I may have been screwing up the order of things, and I haven't been able to find a copy of the script online anywhere, so I've been taking my time to be sure it's all right (I know it's not, but this is the best I could do without any references). If anyone knows where I can read a copy, I'd love to know.**

* * *

Doctor Banner actually wasn't that bad; he was like a big, fluffy haired teddy bear hiding a secret.

I also really liked his purple shirt, and was eager to tell him so before he started scanning me with some kind of gamma device. I may have flinched a couple of times, like the thing was going to jump out at me. I got the feeling Doctor Banner thought I was nervous around _him_, though, and I spent the rest of that meeting trying to prove him wrong.

"See?" Doctor Lin prompted from her place against the doorframe. "Same gamma signature." I don't know how she could come out with something like that as if she was talking about the latest Rangers game. The only thing stopping me from flipping my shit was probably shock.

"I'll have to calibrate the system searching for the cube to ignore her signature, but it may help us in the long run." Banner said. Lin smirked smugly, throwing a few kernels of popcorn into her mouth.

"As lovely as it is to see a new member in the Gamma Mutation Club, I've gotta ask how you came about your membership. As I've heard, it's a pretty exclusive group." I hadn't quite been able to forget that Tony Stark, billionaire playboy, was there, partly because of his own insistence that we pay attention to him, like a petulant child. He had his own kind of sarcastic humour I greatly appreciated, even though he didn't seem to be able to stop from making a joke out of everything. Mind you, I think at that time there was nothing I wanted more than to joke about stuff as if the world wasn't on the precipice of destruction.

He also gave me some of his blueberries. So that's nice.

"That information is classified," shot Lin before I could respond, earning a disdainful look from Tony. I huffed and crossed my arms until Banner pulled them back down to my sides.

"Aw, come on! I can't even pout around here without someone stopping me."

"I know, right?" Tony gasped, seemingly just as exasperated as I was with the amount of restrictions on the Helicarrier. "It's like a prison on this thing. They wouldn't even let me plug in JARVIS."

"They wouldn't let you plug your AI into their top secret government system?" Banner said, sarcasm practically looking at his feet. Tony just waved him off, shaking the aluminium bag until more blueberries fell into his mouth.

"Have you had any side effects so far?" Banner asked me, focusing on his scanner again. The hum of the scanner eventually faded away, and Banner unplugged the device and started wrapping the cord around it for storage. Tony moved across the lab, hopping up onto the bench beside me to fiddle with a nearby hanging monitor.

"Nothing conventional," Lin prodded. The laugh in her voice was unmistakeable; even through the unsettling feeling of unrest in the pit of my stomach, I could feel the same excitement she did over the two scientists discovering my 'talents', and what their reactions may be.

Just as I was about to open my mouth, Tony gave a thoughtful, amused hum and spun his monitor around, playing a video recording taken earlier in the day.

The screen showed Doctor Lin placing tiny electrodes onto my skin, speaking to me quietly in tones the camera couldn't seem to pick up. Right as I smirked at her apparently amusing words, my image blurred slightly and video-me disappeared into thin air. I felt Banner tense beside me, moving closer to the monitor. After a few moments video-me returned, a light sprinkling of snow melting into my hair.

"Where'd you go?" Video-Lin asked with a chuckle, rechecking the electrodes flashing red from the loss of connection.

"Dunno, wasn't there long," Video-me chattered, rubbing her pale, blue-tinged arms. "Cold as hell though." Video-Lin snorted, and the clip began again.

"We've been calling it displacement, what she does," announced Lin, still chewing on her popcorn, "after the psychological principle, a little bit, but mostly particle displacement; you know, the measurement of distance of the movement of a particle as it transmits a wave? If you slow down the clip and get a good look, you can see how she does it." Tony did just that, zooming in the clip and slowing it down by at least ten times, the image grainy and blurred.

Video-me, smirking in slow-motion, suddenly seemed to pull apart into a cloud of skin-and-cloth coloured dust, before it all sucked inwards, kind of like a black hole, with a space-agey vacuum sound.

"The particles making up her body are unstable, and separate themselves when she displaces; she tears herself apart, and then puts herself back together somewhere else." Lin continued.

"It feels a lot simpler than that to me," I muttered.

Tony was still watching the clip with that calculating look a lot of scientists had on this boat. Plane. Thing. "Well paint you blue and call you Nightcrawler," he mumbled. I shot that down instantly, much to Tony's amused chagrin.

"Hunter will do, Mr. Stark," I smirked. We had a short, barely serious stare off before he turned back to his monitor, removing the video from the screen and focusing on what looked to be a complicated search through a lot of restricted files. I furrowed my brow and leant forward over Tony's lap for a better look.

"What is that?" I asked.

"SHIELD's secure files," stated Tony absentmindedly, not at all bothered by the fact that he was, as far as I knew, breaking into SHIELD's database. I stared, slacked jawed at him, before transferring my gaze to the much more easily guilted Doctor Banner, who already looked like a child being sent to the naughty corner.

"It's just, all a little fishy; they could have called us in at any time, so why wait until now?"

"Because the cube's been _stolen?_" I hissed.

"Well, yeah. Fury says they were using the cube to create clean energy, and I'm really the only name is clean energy right now. So I'm not only confused, I'm down right insulted they never called me in. And that makes me a little curious." With Tony giving me that '_it's so simple, how can you not see it'_ stare, I couldn't help the feelings of doubt seeding in my brain.

Across the room, Lin cleared her throat. "Fury's on his way." She pointed a finger at us as she backed out the door, popcorn bowl tucked under the other arm. "If he asks, I didn't have anything to do with your little espionage mission here." Just as she slipped out one door, Fury thundered in the other, black coat flung out behind him, looking marginally more wrathful than usual.

"What do you think you're doing?" he fumed at Tony. Without thinking, I moved a little closer to the genius, Banner doing the same from the other side, as if to protect him from the full wrath of Director Fury. It wasn't like we were bestest buddies, or anything, but I couldn't let anyone take on Fury alone, even if he was my boss. "You're mean to be looking for the cube."

"We are," Tony bristled, not missing a beat. Banner pointed to a computer across the lab, stating it was doing a global search now, and all we could do was wait.

"Then Houdini here can go get it," added Tony.

"Ha ha, no," I drawled, "I've already lost a finger going places I don't know. If the cube is in some secret underground lair or whatever, I risk 'displacing' into a wall. Or a person." I shuddered internally at the thought, the pulling and sinking of nausea suddenly pooling in my gut. Losing my finger had been painful and disorienting, but losing a limb would be far worse. Or, God forbid, cutting myself in half because of my own bad aim.

I actually shuddered at that.

"Or not." Tony finished. "What _is_ Phase 2?"I looked back at the monitor; each time the cursor fell over a file marked 'Phase 2' the screen flashed a violent red 'Access Denied'. Some other documents Tony could get into mentioned Phase 2, but not what it was or anything related to it.

A loud, metallic thump sounded from behind Fury, drawing my attention to the vintage sci-fi style weapon now resting on the table, and the man in red, white and blue who had put it there.

'_Holy shit, that's Captain America. Honest to God, Captain America! I thought they were bullshitting me about that one!'_

"SHIELD's been using the cube to make weapons," the blonde said, voice full of authority, before switching his gaze from Fury to Tony. "Sorry, computer was going a bit too slow for me." He looked about the room, his (damn perfectly sculpted) brow furrowing as he saw me. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but who are you?"

I waved. "Molly Hunter. Big fan." The star-spangled man himself smiled at me, before his determined gaze fell again on an advancing Fury.

"SHIELD was sure to collect all Hydra weapons for analysis only-"

"I'm sorry, Fury," interrupted Tony, flipping the monitor around, "were you lying?" The screen showed what looked like a complex diagram for some kind of atomic bomb, the power source for which was a glowing ball of blue energy eerily similar to that emitted by the Tesseract.

Suddenly even just wearing a SHIELD uniform felt like a major betrayal to humanity.

The gaze of Captain Roger's fell on me again, with far more ice than last time. "Did you know about this?"

"No!" I quivered, "I didn't even know about the Tesseract until a few days ago. I'm just a part of the maintenance crew. They don't tell me anything." The Captain stared at me for a moment, almost through me, as if searching my soul for any trace of a lie.

Apparently, he decided I was trustworthy, and turned away.

"Doctor Banner, you want to think about removing yourself from this environment?" Natasha Romanov, truly terrifying SHIELD operative, had stormed straight into the room and the conversation, followed silently by a towering man in some kind of ancient Viking armour. I could vaguely remember reading the file about this guy; Thor, supposedly the Norse God of thunder, from another world called Asgard. His brother, Loki, God of Lies, was the one who had taken the Tesseract the day of my 'accident'. At the time, I thought the whole file was some bullshit attempt of Coulson's at a prank.

"Hey, I was in India, I was pretty well removed," Banner retorted, his chuckle filled with darkness and cynicism.

"I didn't make you come here," hissed Natasha.

Banner snorted. "Yeah, well, I'm not going to leave just because you get a little jittery." He grabbed the monitor and angled it carefully. "I want to know why SHIELD was planning to use the cube to make _bombs_." Fury stilled, jaw tensed, before pointing towards the tall, blonde, walking Pantene ad beside Romanov.

"Because of him."

Thor paused, puppy-faced confusion blooming, arms crossed but still somehow pointing to himself, "Me?"

"Last year we had a visitor from another planet whose grudge match levelled a small town," Fury explained.

"My people have no quarrel with you-"

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? We are hopelessly – hilariously – outgunned."

"So you built a nuclear deterrent? Because that's always worked so well." Tony drawled. Fury turned on him, eye almost popping out of his head.

"Why don't you take a minute to remember how you made your fortune," he replied.

"Look, I'm sure if Stark still dealt in weapons-" Captain Rogers stepped forward. Tony balked.

"Hold on, when did this become about me?"

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?"

Ooh. I sense rivalry. As much as I would have loved to see the two wrestle it out (preferably shirtless) some small, rational part of my mind knew it wasn't the time for it.

"Okay, boys, calm down."

"Why don't you keep out of this, Hunter?" Romanov hissed at me suddenly.

'_Okay, woah.'_ "Why? I'm just as much a part of this as any of you." She rolled her eyes; a flare of anger swelled within me.

"Just because you're here doesn't mean you're a part of this," she snarled, 'you're not prepared, you're not trained. You have no idea what you're doing. If anything you're a liability to this mission." Fire raged behind her eyes. I ducked my head, the sudden onset of a raging blush and furious, embarrassed tears had me backing off. I had always been easily broken down by people who yelled at me, but it seemed she knew my greatest weakness; wanting to belong.

She had made it very clear I didn't. It felt like they all knew it.

Luckily, they were all too busy yelling at each other to yell at me, but the damage was already done. I was stressed, I was upset, I was barely in control of displacing – just like Romanov had said. I could only watch, in some distorted version of an out-of-body experience, as everything seemed to blur and then blink out of existence, vertigo blinding me to my landing place until I was falling through the air onto the stiff metal grating below me.

The clatter of unsecured metal filled the room I was in, echoing back and forth along with my pained groans. My elbows and tail bone had dug into the metal, an ache that was minimal but would last a while, and I couldn't say I had the highest pain threshold, so I was likely to complain about it. The impact seemed to vibrate up and down my bones.

"Well," a voice crooned, soft yet ragged and curiously formal, "another visitor to my humble abode." I wrenched my eyes open, facing the blurry dark figure in the startlingly white cell beside me, looking down at me with amusement and disdain.

So. This was Loki.

* * *

**A/N: Any reviews would be greatly appreciated; they're also good motivators! I'm also going to shamelessly advertise my Tumblr () because I'm such a miserable person who rates my self worth by the number of Tumblr followers I have. So yeah. Hope you enjoyed it!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I am a giant lying liarpants. I said I'd have this up almost three days ago, only to realise I had left my draft book at school and brought home my Literature book instead... so I've written it up. To make up for my lateness I'll post the next chapter tomorrow (I've gotten really far ahead in writing my chapter drafts!). Thank you all for your lovely reviews and your patience!**

* * *

It had taken me a few minutes to stand, my bones still aching, but nothing could draw the god's eyes away from me. He stalked silently from one side of his cage to the other, Cheshire grin upon his face. I backed away slowly as I stood, leaning against the nearby railing. It felt as if, were I to look away, he would strike out at me like a venomous snake.

"How long have you been here?" I asked him. I sounded a lot more calm than I felt; I knew the guy was dangerous but he looked like he wasn't worried at all, like he could get out with a flick of his wrist.

"A while, now. I've been getting a few visitors. Your Black Widow," he spat, as if the words were poison. I inched closer to the doorway.

"Yeah," I breathed, looking down at my feet, "she and I don't really get along." Loki stopped in his tracks, turning and stalking towards me, stopped by the glass. The sound of his boots against the floor echoed eerily throughout the empty, spherical room.

"Hmm. She told me a lot about you. A little girl, a child in woman's clothing, playing dress up. Pretending to belong." Part of me wanted to say that Romanov would never openly betray her beliefs to someone like him, but she had been pretty vocal about her distrust of me. The familiar clench in my throat, making it hard to breathe and hard not to cry returned. My biggest weakness was my fear of not belonging; of being a hindrance, of people not liking me. And there's no way they would have wanted me around now; I was nothing compared to them, they were superheroes for Christ sakes! I was just a maintenance girl; it was like the engineering version of a janitor. They must have known how utterly useless I was.

"What threat could you ever be to me, you worthless, vomitous mass? You are barely even on par with the Midgardian rabble, let alone me, or my army." He was leaning forward, almost nosing the glass, glaring down at me as if I were an ant. The look in his eyes alone was enough to bring tears stinging into my eyes.

But I didn't want to cry in front of him; I wanted to be strong, I wanted to be worth something. It would be mortifying to let him win. But I'm sure that, at the time, I would have bawled like a baby if not for the explosion that shook the carrier.

I was thrown across the room by the dangerous rocking of the ship, slamming into the doors, which slid open when I connected with the floor. I groaned, crawling onto my knees, then slowly to my feet, a much more difficult feat than before considering the ship was still wobbling dangerously.

I looked back up at Loki a final time, only to see a smudge of perfect white upon his tear-blurred figure.

'_That little fucker's smiling at me.' _I furiously whipped my tears away, performed a heel-face-turn, and stormed out into the hallway. Warning sirens blared throughout the ship, directing me towards the centre control room.

"Halt, Hunter!" A voice boomed from down the hall. Rubbing at the remaining tears in my eyes, I tried to calm myself as the source of the voice, this Thor from before, approached. "You vanished moments before the battle began. You are not harmed?" His large hands grasped my arms, holding me still while checking over me for wounds. Almost as if it were being called, the ache in my bones struck up.

"Nothing I can't handle," I winced. "What's the battle plan?"

"The Metal Man and the Captain are to stop the flying ship from falling. Your Woman Warrior is missing, as is the Science Man." In one of his massive hands – the other having grasped the hammer that was once hanging from his belt – he passed me a tiny earpiece. "I was tasked with giving this to you."

'_How the hell did he not crush that?' _Grabbing the earpiece and shoving it into my ear, I winced at the loud voices hollering at each other over the airwaves.

"Thor!" That was definitely Hill; the same scream I had heard when boarding the Helicarrier, this time unobstructed by powering jet turbines. "Banner's unleashed the Hulk. You're the only one who can take him down, I'll tell you how to get to him." The Asgardian nodded, as if the voice could see him, and turned a final time to me. I was honestly surprised at how concerned he looked.

"You will keep yourself safe?" His hand, giant and warm, rested on my shoulder. It may have been the first conversation I'd ever had with the guy, but he seemed to show more genuine concern for my safety that anyone had in a long time.

'_Okay, if I don't get going, I might actually cry. Again.'_

"Yeah, I'll be fine," I told him. He patted my arm once, lightly, as if I might break, and took off the way I had come. I pressed the button on my earpiece to activate the microphone.

"Agent Hill?"

"Hunter," her voice sounded terse – less about talking to me, but more with the stress of the situation – but came through clearly, "Go to the crew quarters, on the East side. Bring any stranded crew there to the Control Centre." The connection crackled, but I was still able to hear commands being shouted back and forth through the static.

"Acknowledged." Didn't really seem like a great time to ask which side was the East Side. So I just jogged around a little, looking for a map or a sign or something.

"Shit," I swore, "I'm so lost." I wrung a hand through my hair in frustration. "Fuck."

"_Mevrouwtje_!" Mr. Rolf, only a few doors away from me, stuck his head out into the hall and waved me closer. Before I could take a step towards him a spray of bullets clattered into the metal wall, sending us both sprawling towards the ground. On my hands and knees, I crawled slowly towards the door, jumping up onto my feet in a crouch as I got closer.

Of course, the intruder shooting at us wasn't just going to give up that easily. So when he rounded the corner, I did what any girl would do in that situation. I kicked him in the balls.

He went down like a rock, dropping his gun, which I hastily took and knocked him out with. Watching as he fell unconscious against the ground, I smirked and leant the butt of the gun against my hip. "Not prepared my ass."

"_Mevrouwtje, _in here!" Mr. Rolf called again, reached an arm out and pulling me into the room he had taken refuge in – what appeared to be a bedroom, filled wall to wall with bunk-beds and populated by a group of roughly half a dozen SHIELD agents. I sighed, holding out my newly acquired rifle.

"Who can use this?" A tall, dark haired, dark skinned soldier stepped forward, taking the rifle and checking it over with practiced ease. "Okay, and who knows how to get to the control centre from here?" There was a quiet murmuring from the group before a short, curly haired brunette stepped forth, chin held high.

"I know the fastest way."

I gestured for her to exit the room. "You're in the lead then. Let's get out of here."

Gurls, and the guy with the gun, filed out first, checking corners and hallways, while the rest of the group followed closely behind. Mr. Rolf and I pulled up the rear, my hand tucked into his elbow tightly.

The sewn up stump where my ring finger used to be itched something painful.

"It's good to see you unharmed, _Mevrouwtje._" Mr. Rolf muttered. I tightened my grasp around his arm and gave him the best smile I could manage. A spatter of gunfire sounded in the distance, through the churning for broken metal.

It was like traversing a maze; as soon as Curls grew sure of herself, her path would be blocked by a destroyed hallway, a group of soldiers we had to sneak past, or on a memorable occasion a burst pipe leaking some kind of coolant out into the hallway we were warned by a lab assistant to 'definitely stay away from'.

It was only after we stopped for more than a minute that I actually reacted. "What's the hold up?"

"I found a way through," Curls' voice hovered above the crowd, "but the door is jammed! The keypad won't open it!" I sighed, giving Mr. Rolf an apologetic look, and pushed through the crowd. I nodded Curls out of my way and inspected the keypad. Pulling it off the wall, I look at the collection of wires inside.

"Do all SHIELD bases use the same doors?" I questioned aloud, pulling my penknife – maintenance crew's best friend – from my pocket. "They had the same ones at the last base. They could survive an explosion, but the tiniest knock will lock them up. I'll reset it manually." I shoved the knife deep up into the panel, clicking it into the manual control and turning it to reactivate the doors. The gears churned painfully as they attempted to put the sliding door back on its tracks. Finally, the door crawled open.

Curls, not wasting a moment, crawled through the door as soon as it opened wide enough for her to fit through, the others following at least marginally more calmly until Mr. Rolf and I ended the group, resetting the door in its locked position.

We ended up having to do a whole running-dive manoeuvre to avoid the gunfire of the intruders taking the two side doors; they must have given up on the one we had used, unfamiliar with the system. Luckily I had dived behind a half wall right next to Hill, who spared me a silent glance before firing her sidearm at another intruder.

"They're not getting through here," Fury called quietly to our left, "so what the hell are they-"

An explosion sent a couple of agents flying over a railing; a similar explosion on the other side caused even more injuries. For a moment I swore I saw a third projectile, but no explosion occurred; until I spotted the arrow jutting out of a power socket, electricity crackling up and down the work stations until every screen went black.

I followed the arrows trajectory back. Standing inside a small window, staring down at me with cold, blue, lifeless eyes, was Barton. Fury took a few shots at him, but he was already gone.

'_Don't get yourself killed, Clint.'_

"It's Barton, he took out our systems, he's headed for the detention level." Fury was trying to contact any agents he could find over the intercom, but Hill was already stomping over to me.

She had a really gross head injury. It somehow made her a lot more human knowing she could bleed, though.

"Someone'll stop Barton. You need to check on Loki." Instantly she was off in another direction, hand on her ear, shouting instructions left and right. I rolled my eyes, clenched my muscles, focused on the room I had been in only minutes before and—

- Promptly face planted into a broken rail.

"Fuck!" I grabbed at the side of my face, covering my numb cheek and my stinging eye and I jumped to my feet. Expecting a fight, I was surprised to find the cage Loki had been in missing; though I had no way of knowing whether Loki had been inside when it was apparently dropped. A large whole had been blown into the wall behind me – the cause of that damn broken rail – and in front of me—

"Phil!" I leapt forward, kneeling at his side, pulling the large gun-thing-whatever-it-was out of his lap. He looked up at me without moving his head, mouth somehow curled into the tiniest grin despite the blood creeping out the corner. I placed one hand over his wound, applying pressure, while the other rested over his heart. As it was, his heartbeat was weak, but stable. Hopefully it would stay that way until help arrived. "What happened?" His suit had a long rip in it; he had been stabbed, not shot.

"Everything's going to be okay, Phil," I hushed. Footsteps sounded behind me (_'Finally.'_) as Fury entered my line of vision, kneeling on Phil's other side and trying to keep his gaze.

"Sorry boss," Phil breathed, "the guy rabbited."

"Just stay awake," Fury claimed, "Eyes on me."

"No, I'm clocking out here.

"_Not an option._"

"It's okay boss," if I wasn't so close, I wouldn't have known Phil was practically chuckling these words. "This was never gonna work... if they had something to-to-"

And he was gone.

"_No!" _I screamed, pressing harder against his chest. AN EMT tried to move me but I shrugged him off, giving fury a pleading look.

A beat of silence passed between us. "Take him."

And I did.

* * *

"Yeah, the bed she was on is still closed," the patient claimed, raising his arm so the nurse could replace his IV drip. The young nurse rolled her eyes, inserting the drip and hanging the IV.

"You sure it wasn't all in your head, Jose? You were pretty drugged up, mate." She claimed. Jose, gripping his sheets tightly, shook his head.

"No way, Kate, I know what I saw. She was missing a finger, and the nurse came over to stitch it up, and the lady had wrapped it in a pillowcase." Raising a brow, Kate walked about the bed, approaching the curtained off area the Hispanic patient claimed held a teleporting woman. Making her decision she pulled the curtain away, observing the empty bed behind it. Only slightly crinkled, the sheets were practically untouched—

Though the pillowcase had been taken off the pillow and spotted with blood.

Shocked, the nurse tugged the curtain half shut and stepped away. "That doesn't mean she _teleported in_, mate." She shook her head and reached for the chart clipped to the end of his bed. "I don't know what kind of drugs they were giving you in that American hospital, but we'll fix you up right here, mate. No more hallucinations." Her strong Australian accent added to her apparent nationalism, sending the Hispanic man a wry look before writing a note on the chart and clipping it again.

"Don't worry about it too much, Jose. People don't just appear out of thin air-"

A deafening pull of sound surrounded them, a _fwooshp _that silenced everything around it, ruffling hair and pulling the curtain the nurse had barely closed inwards.

On top of the curtained off bed sat a ruffled, bleeding, almost dead man in a suit, while beside the bed clung a young woman covered in blood, gasping for breath and clutching the bed's railing with a white knuckled grip.

"It's her," Jose cried, pumping his fist into the air in victory.

"I need two things," the woman gasped, "this man in a stable, _living _condition, and a mpa of the best hospital in Manhattan."

Kate reached beneath the bed and hit the emergency call button.

* * *

**A/N: Ugh, by the end of this I was so dizzy I was practically falling out of my chair (that's anaemia for you!) so I totally gave up on looking it over again, so watch out for mistakes. I hope you enjoyed it and would love to hear what you thought!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Okay, I almost forgot to get this done, but I promised, so here it is. (There was a bomb threat at my school today. It was pretty awesome. And distracting.) Thanks to everyone who reviewed (and a special shout out to blackcat711, who I couldn't reply to because they have their private messaging feature turned off!), I certainly hope this chapter meets all your expectations. (This was originally the first third of a huge chapter, but I just didn't have time to write it all out in one go and I didn't want to keep you waiting, so I split it into two, with the second half taking up all the action. Sorry this is so short and pitiful.)**

* * *

Natasha and Clint had reached a terse understanding; he would remain in bed until she said otherwise, and he wouldn't be restrained again. For a time she had amused him with anecdotes and dry humour, but was constantly being called out of the room with updates on the Loki situation. Clint, bored but obedient, had taken to counting individual ceiling tiles in his room.

There were 47. One was missing. Clint couldn't help but wonder where it had gone.

The door slid open and Clint snapped to attention.

"Hey," Natasha hummed, sliding the door shut again. She had some kind of fancy Stark Industries tablet device in one hand, the universal 'call waiting' symbol flashing through the glass. "Got a call for you." She passed the tablet over, opening the call before letting go.

The face that came up on screen was half swollen, eye and cheek various shades of yellow, purple, and blue, but clearly recogniseable to the marksman as the face of Molly Hunter (quite possibly the only interesting person on base during the Tesseract Experiments, if Clint had any say).

"Hey, Barton," she chortled, "good to see you. Enjoying bed rest?"

"Hey, I'll black your other eye if you aren't careful with that lip, Hunter," he joked. "How'd you get that eye anyway?" Hunter rubbed at her bruise, wincing at the self-inflicted pain it brought.

"I displaced into a broken rail."

Clint blinked. "Displaced."

"Oh yeah, it's like teleporting." A moment passed silently, the two staring at each other over their mobile devices. "I can do that now."

"Okay, sure. I think you might have damaged your brain on that rail, Hunter."

"Hey, I'm already at the hospital! SHIELD set me up at that Presbyterian University Hospital. Private room and everything." She flipped her camera about, showing a shot of the side of the room away from the hospital bed – she wasn't sitting in it, but next to it, in what Clint assumed to be some kind of defiance – before flipping it back.

"What? I'm still on the carrier. This is bullshit!" Clint chortled in barely believable anger.

"You have a private room, Barton." Natasha crowed.

"Yeah, right, private brooms closet more like it." Clint looked down at the tablet, rolling his eyes at Hunter, who mimicked the motion with a look of understanding.

"You can always share my room, Barton. Cable." Hunter waved a remote in the view of the camera. Clint hummed, finger to his chin in mock thought.

"I'll have to take you up on that."

"And that's all the time Agent Barton has today," Natasha claimed, grasping the tablet and holding it up to her face. "Take care, Hunter."

"Will do." A brief salute, a cheeky smile, and Hunter was gone, replaced with a garish Stark Industries logo and a time stamp.

"You look better," Natasha said finally, reaching a hand to feel Clint's forehead.

Clint smirked, "What d'ya think, Doc? Am I well enough to go out and play with the other kids?" Natasha gave him one of her rare, real smiled before smacking him lightly on the head and returning to her stoicism.

"Play nice."

* * *

I wouldn't call myself an expert on hospitals, but this was definitely the nicest one I'd ever been in. A private room, clean but not with that chemical smell, cable TV, a little stocked mini bar like in hotels. I was in heaven, and totally glad I could brag to Barton about it.

I had been given strict orders not to mention to him, or to anyone for that matter, that the room wasn't mine, however, but Coulson's.

"Is Supernanny on?" '_Christ, the guy got out of surgery only a couple of hours ago and he's already weaving in and out of consciousness.'_

"I don't know, hero, let me check." I flicked from channel to channel as quickly as I dared, smiling at Coulson from the (surprisingly comfortable) chair by his bedside. He rolled his eyes at me.

"It's Agent to you."

"Oh, c'mon, you love it." I gave a victorious woop as I reached a channel actually playing the British reality show. "Besides, you deserve it, _Agent_."

For a moment, I thought he had fallen unconscious. I slumped down into my chair.

"You're right, I like hero better." I laughed out loud at him, louder than I had since this thing had all started, and it actually startled me. Luckily, the ringing of the Stark phone one of the SHIELD agents guarding the door had given me provided an ample distraction.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Houdini, what's up?"

"_Tony_?" I squeaked. "How did you get this number?"

"Is that Stark?" Coulson groaned. I flapped a hand out over his face, attempting cover his mouth but probably just covering his nose or something.

"Lucky guess. A little birdie told me you're in New York."

I sat up straighter in my chair, business face on. "What's this about?"

"Something going to go down in New York, and everyone's about to be in a lot of danger. If there's anyone to get the injured to safe places fast, it's you."

I sputtered into my phone. "What do you expect me to do, I'm not a doctor, and I can't displace everyone in New York-"

"Then take them to a place where they can _find _and doctor," Tony emphasised, "just do whatever you can." I could hear the faint sound of some kind of thrusters in the background.

"Tony, what-"

"Actually, I'm Ironman right now," he replied, "and I've really got to go."

"Okay-" The line beeped in response.

I dropped the phone, still utterly confused. "What the hell?"

"What'd he want?" Coulson muffled around my hand, which I swiftly removed. I spared a glance at his heart rate monitor, beeping softly on the other side of his bed.

"He wants me to do boring, monotonous, difficult errands."

"Sounds like him."

"Get some rest, hero. I'll be back." I patted his knee once, grabbed the bag with my spare uniform and shuffled out into the hallway, catching the attention of the SHIELD agents standing guard.

"I need an empty room; no patients, no nurses, no furniture; somewhere I can land safely. Call any staff that aren't busy and get them ready to receive patients from that room. Shit is about to go down and everyone should be prepared. I'll also need a place to suit up.

* * *

**A/N: Ugh, I should write more but it's so late and I just don't have time, and this was the only good place in the chapter I could split it. The next chapter has all the action, though, so hopefully that more than makes up for this pitiful update. Again, all reviews are greatly appreciated!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: So I think this is the longest I've gone without updating this story; and after a week filled with seizures, bomb scares, hospital visits, power outages and almost setting the house on fire, I'm not surprised. Luckily I've reached the weekend and nothing terrible seems to have happened, so I've finally gotten around to writing this up. Thanks to everyone who reviewed!**

* * *

As it turns out, the SHIELD agents at the hospital were far more capable than I thought they were; everything was set up and ready to go long before any action occurred; all I could do was sit atop the hospital roof, tug my gloves on and off in anticipation, watching as the city bustled on below me completely unaware of what was about to happen.

The earpiece I had been given on the Helicarrier had been gifted to me again; while now it was tuned in to JARVIS, who would alert me to any urgent 911 calls coming in, it had earlier been tuned in to the SHIELD feed. Mr. Rolf and I had a lovely conversation.

"My company designed SHIELD's Helicarrier, along with many of it's other vehicles and gadgets," he told me, "and should you wish, I would like to offer you a cadetship with me."

I was understandably ecstatic. (I may have cried a little bit.)

"Thank you so much, Mr. Rolf," I sobbed.

"Please, call me Peter," he hushed. "And it is nothing. Just make it out safe, _Mevrouwtje_."

As if on cue, a bolt of glowing blue _something_ – that could only be the same energy the Tesseract emitted when it activated at the old SHIELD base – shot up high into the sky, turning and broiling and expanding until the deep darkness of space peeked through. For a short moment, I was baffled by the utterly clear view of the stars; of a place so far away it was doubtful any human eye had seen it before today.

And then, they came.

"Molly?"

"Captain?"

"We're flying in now. Get people off the streets and underground; cellars or the subway."

"Acknowledged."

I stood, tugged my gloves up a final time, spotted my target, and displaced.

* * *

Alice Carmen liked to think she'd seen a lot of weird things. Being a police officer in New York, you could even say she was used to weird things. But if someone had told her that morning that by 3:30 she'd be fending off an armada of alien invaders from getting near the Baxter Building, she would have told them they were crazy.

And she would have been wrong.

"Stay behind cover!" She shouted, pulling, as gently as she could, a heavily pregnant blonde woman away from the opening in their cover. Pushing the woman away from the pile of overturned cars, Alice warned her to move closer to the building; she didn't wait to see if the woman made it to the steadily growing group of survivors now huddled under the awning, aiming her sidearm at a group of the _aliens, for God's sake _pushing through debris and firing.

'_There's nothing I can do about the one's that are flying, but I'll be damned if I'm letting any if the ground troops get in here,' _she thought. She turned fully on her heel,

Two small boys, possibly only 8 or 9, toppled out of the back seat of a nearby Subaru, running over to her and clutching her legs. She knelt, smiled as truthfully as she could, and put guiding hands on their back as she gestured to the Baxter Building doors; dusty and broken, but open, allowing

"I can take them."

Alice shot up, firearm aimed straight at the totally calm face of a young, red headed woman in a blue uniform. The patches on her shoulders resembled flying eagles; the anagram told little more than the organisation she worked for was called S.H.I.E.L.D.

"What the hell? Don't sneak up on me like that, woman!" Alice swore. The woman tried to gaze around the gun, which Alice swung about to train on her face.

"I work for SHIELD; we've been brought in to take care of this, Ironman and Captain America and all of us 'remarkable people'. It's my job to get people to safety, and I'd rather help you than fight you, ma'am." The woman was calm and collected, though seemed eager to move, raising a hand near the gun but not touching it.

Alice nodded, and the woman pushed the gun away.

"Take anyone who isn't injured into the cellar of the Baxter Building; I've got no idea where the people who live in that building are, but I'd assume that building is damn near indestructible, so it's the safest place nearby. Keep an injured people where I can get to them, I'll bring them to the hospital." Alice nodded again, ushering the two small boys by her side over to the woman.

"Do I get to know your name?" Alice asked, taking the time to reload her sidearm. The red headed woman smiled at her.

"Now would be a really good time to have an awesome codename, but sadly I don't." She reached her hand out to shake. "Molly Hunter."

"Thanks, Hunter."

"Hey, this is my job. Thank you."

Hunter reached out, grabbed the boys by their shoulders, blurred like a bad CCTV clip, and vanished.

Well. It wasn't the weirdest thing Alice had seen that day.

* * *

It was chaos; I wasn't even out there for longer than 2 minutes and I knew this was something New York had only seen once before. Already I had moved both the boys, a pregnant woman (who was unfortunately forced into labour by the effects of displacement) a man with what looked like a crushed arm, a young girl with a broken foot and an elderly couple who had refused to separate when the wife had hit her head on a piece of flying concrete.

It was taking its toll. Before all that I had only ever displaced twice in succession; wherever I went and back. While I hadn't randomly displaced since arriving in New York (I assumed it had something to do with my constant use of the power) I had been voluntarily displacing almost non-stop, and the feelings of vertigo, nausea and drowsiness were almost overpowering. I had been taking longer and longer breaks in the hospital, curled up on the floor with my eyes crunched shut breathing heavily into the carpet.

"Maybe you should stop," one of the SHIELD agents asked, crouching down and laying a hand on my shoulder. I brushed it off lazily, groaning and pushing myself up, shaking the sleepiness away.

"No, I can do it. If they can do it, so can I." I stepped away from him, closed my eyes and found myself out in the middle of the street – which street, I didn't know – a street that was dusty and destroyed and mostly abandoned, at least where I was standing.

I was standing in a piece of broken concrete. At least, once of my feet was; I could see my ankle disappearing into the stone, blood seeping out onto it's surface, before it seemed to slide down, and then I was falling.

I can't remember hearing myself scream, but I knew it must have happened. Nonetheless, I was out for the count, lying in the street with one foot mysteriously missing, staring up into the sky as it exploded into a ball of fiery orange and red, only to close in on itself, to close itself up into a perfect, untouched blue. Only a tiny speck, falling from the heavens, blotted out the perfectness of my view.

For a moment, everything was blessedly silent. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, pulsing about my body, gushing blood from my foot out onto the road. My breath stuttered, half formed chuckles making their way through. Then, darkness came.

* * *

When I next, woke, someone was carrying me. I could feel the jostle, the hard points of armour, the strong arms wrapped about my knees and waist.

"You will be healed, Shield Maiden," a voice rumbled, deep from the chest of the person carrying me, "for you have fought valiantly."

The steady rocking of each thundering, rolling step lolled me into unconsciousness.

* * *

**A/N: This was a lot longer in my first draft, but I just felt like it needed to be more fractured and vague to fit the situation. I'd love to know what people think. Also, I'd love to hear if any of you spotted the incredibly obvious reference to another Marvel superhero group! I find references amusing.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Getting closer and closer to the end of this story! I'm hoping everyone is pleased with the outcome. Thanks for everyone who reviewed, even those I couldn't reply to, and I certainly hope this new chapter meets all your expectations. Please, enjoy!**

* * *

The beeping was always there.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Sometimes, if I tried really hard, I could make it faster.

_BeepBeepBeep_

But then my arm would sting and hurt, and my leg would hurt _more_, and I'd behave.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Sometimes I felt like I was waking up.

"We need you under for a bit longer, Miss Hunter."

Why? Someone's waiting for me. Someone…

Maybe it's Death I'm thinking of.

* * *

People sit by me. I can sense the change, when someone leaves and another arrives. But someone is always with me, between my wakings and my unconsciousness.

Thor smells like smoke, like rain, like wet forest. He only came once, in the beginning, to say goodbye. He was taking Loki away, and that made me happy. He didn't know if he could come back, and that made me sad.

He held my hand, though. That was nice.

* * *

"Got a room next to mine, Hunter. Might as well call this the Hero Wing, what with how many of us end up here. I've got that episode of Supernanny on tape, too; you can't just leave without seeing how it ends."

He smells strongly of blueberries, weakly of engine grease, or something similar. Occasionally there is an undercurrent of coconut. Maybe he brings fruit with him.

He never speaks, but he seems sad. Sad and sorry.

* * *

Banner does speak. About my progress. About New York. About the Avengers.

I wanted to tell him that he didn't have to make up for not speaking before. But I couldn't.

* * *

Mr. Rolf called in. He said my job was still waiting for me when I woke up.

Clint arrived when Mr. Rolf left, and sat with me for a few hours, doing something with his hands.

"This isn't what I meant when I said I'd share a hospital room with you, Molly. It wasn't."

* * *

Natasha said sorry. That I was untrained, but I wasn't unprepared. That she was wrong.

Tears leaked from under my eyelids, down the sides of my face in warm rivulets.

She pressed the button, and I fell asleep.

* * *

When I opened my eyes for the first time, there was a vintage Captain America poster, framed, leaning against the side wall. A small 'get well soon Coulson' was printed on a tag hanging form the corner.

A messy 'and Steve' was tagged on the poster was signed by him, too.

I was sad I wasn't semi-conscious for Steve's visit.

I fell into a voluntary, un-drugged sleep.

* * *

Barton was there when I woke up.

"Hey." The corners of his eyes crinkled. I smiled, attempting to respond only to cough and splutter dryly, until a plastic cup was pushed against my lips. My arms and legs felt heavy and numb, so my fumbling for the bed control led only to Clint motoring my bed into an upright position.

"How long was I out?" I croaked. Clint made a noncommittal noise.

"A week or two. Somewhere between. You've been in and out the past few days." I nodded slowly, looking down my bed.

There was a lump in the covers where my left foot was. My right just stopped.

I shuddered, and looked away.

Clint rubbed the back of his neck. "They never found your foot. It was a blood infection that kept you down, though."

I breathed out harshly, angry and upset. What was I going to do now? I'd have to get rid of all my right shoes, I'd have to get in a wheelchair; I'd probably lose my job with Mr. Rolf. I'd be pitied for the rest of my life.

"Hey, calm down, Hunter," Clint said, hand on my shoulder, thumb rubbing across my hospital gown. My face felt hot, and my eyes stung. "Stark's making you this awesome prosthetic, you'll barely even notice it's there."

"And when did Tony become an expert in prosthetic limbs?"

"A week ago. Almost two," Tony drawled, ambling in the room with a metal briefcase. "I've got a present for you, Mister Mistoffelees." Clint patted my head, mumbled something about coffee, and took off. Opening his briefcase, Tony raised a brow at me. I mimicked his expression.

"May I?" He questioned, gesturing to my missing foot. I shuddered, but nodded, and he pulled the blanket up to my knee.

The foot I was expecting, in my imagination, was a plastic, peachy flesh colored monstrosity with some kind of harness to keep it on my foot. This was not what Tony had in his hands.

I could see the intricate gears and wires inside how each toe was separate, could move on hinges, acting as joints. I could see where it would fit onto my leg, vaguely harness like, though Tony warned me it was designed to be permanent and would essentially 'fuse' into my leg.

I hissed in pain as it did so; it was well worth it, however, to wiggle those little mechanical toes.

Tony slid a rubbery, skin like sock over the foot; if it wasn't _my foot _I wouldn't have never have been able to tell where my leg stopped and my prosthetic began.

I wasn't going to ask how he got my exact skin color. I _did _have some questions though.

"Why are you helping me?"

"Why not? The good Captain is all about taking care of your team, after all." He kept fiddling with the sock, not keeping my eyes. Suddenly, something clicked.

Tony smelled like blueberries.

"Tony." I called, softly. He looked up at me, through the hair, falling down in front of his eyes. "Nothing that happened was your fault."

"It was my tower."

"You think there weren't a hundred other towers he could have chosen? The Statue of Liberty, even?"

"The Tesseract was powered by an arc reactor. That's how he got it to work. Without that tower, he could have _never _opened that portal!" There was hostility in his voice, anger I his eyes; but none of it was directed at me.

"Don't you _dare _regret making that arc reactor," I hissed. "It's a scientific marvel, the biggest jump in clean energy _ever_! Think of all the good it'll do!"

"Look at all the evil it's already done!" Tony shouted, throwing an arm out towards the window. Outside, partly destroyed skyscrapers dotted the horizon; many streets were still closed off as rubble and written-off cars were towed away.

Tony sighed, gripping the bridge of his nose tightly between two fingers. "Stark's are only ever good for making weapons." He moved towards the door. I flipped the covers away, swinging my legs around to hover over the floor.

"I don't believe that." Tony paused, turning as I lowered my feet to the floor. I gave a surprised gasp; even through my new prosthetic, I could feel the cool tile against my feet. I tilted my head up again to meet the billionaire's eyes. "And I think I have a pretty good reason for it, too." I put a little more pressure on the flats of my feet. "Now get over here and help me get to the window."

It was slow going, and while I could stand on my own I did need Tony's help to walk, but overall it didn't tale too long to make my way across the room.

I didn't even get a good look out the window before Clint returned, Styrofoam coffee cup falling out of his hand and splashing coffee against the tiles. "What the _hell _is wrong with your legs?"

I had a witty reply about my awesome new foot all ready, until I realized that both Tony and Clint had their eyes a little closer to my knees, and Tony had leaned down and gripped my leg to keep me still, and Clint had said 'legs', not 'feet', and that there were two, identical glowing blue dots blinking beneath the skin on the back of my legs, below my knees.

Tony pressed lightly into the skin; I could feel the pressure, but certainly not of a finger; it was the painful pinch of something metal, some kind of device beneath my skin.

Dear seeping into my mind, I turned to Clint, eyes wild. "What's going on?"

His gaze flew between the glowing lights beneath my skin, Tony's hands as he inspected them, and my terrified face.

"I'm calling Coulson."

* * *

**A/N: Uuugh, my dad's been asking about my story, and I've been trying to play it off like it's totally not Avengers fanfiction. Hopefully being so close to the end I can start working on a more original piece to throw him off the trail. Anywho, please let me know what you think; I can't improve if I don't get other opinions! Thank you all so much for reading.**


End file.
